Lessons from Primary Elections in August for Election Day in November
Many state officials demonstrated a passion and creativity for creating the necessary conditions for Americans to vote in August. But additional reforms are required for November.
by Bronte Kass and Michael McFaul
September 22 is National Voter Registration Day !
Visit Vote.org to check your registration status, register to vote, or request an absentee ballot for the general election. To plan your vote in November 2020, visit Plan Your Vote or How to Vote in the 2020 General Election.
Following a challenging series of presidential primaries during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, sixteen U.S. states held primary and runoff elections in August with greater success. With expanded access to absentee balloting and updated in-person voting in coordination with public health guidance, many states like Georgia and Wisconsin saw widely recognized improvements.
The benefit of these critical preparations was also evident in high turnout (e.g. Washington, Hawaii, Vermont, Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, Arizona’s Maricopa county). A record number of voters made use of absentee (e.g., Wisconsin, Florida) and early voting options (e.g., Tennessee, Minnesota).
While overall participation broke historic records in many jurisdictions, the August elections saw a fraction of the turnout expected in the fall. In fact, early voting for the general election has already started in Minnesota, Virginia, South Dakota, and Wyoming. North Carolina mailed its first absentee ballots to over 618,000 voters.
Nevertheless, the primary competitions provide important lessons. To address the threat that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to the 2020 elections, the Stanford-MIT Project on a Healthy Election assesses and promotes best practices for ensuring the presidential election proceeds with integrity, safety, and equal access. The team published a comprehensive memo that summarizes key challenges to state electoral infrastructure and the multitude of approaches undertaken in August to remedy them.
Voting by Mail
The August primaries were an encouraging test for the expansion of vote-by-mail throughout the country. As of September 16 — when Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law a bill allowing every registered voter in South Carolina to vote absentee — approximately 84% of Americans are eligible to cast their ballots by mail in the presidential election.
As the Healthy Elections Project memo describes, the risks associated with in-person voting incentivized many officials to provide alternative options by meaningfully scaling their absentee voting infrastructure and implementing new policies in response to demand.
This careful preparation largely preserved access to the franchise. Positive interventions included expanding absentee voting in Connecticut, Missouri, and Tennessee; automatically sending ballot request forms to registered voters in South Dakota, Michigan, Connecticut, and Vermont; and waiving burdensome verification requirements in Minnesota and Missouri.
However, voters and election administrators could still improve current challenges with regards to further expanding access; remedying missing or delayed ballots; and lowering ballot rejection rates due to delayed delivery or signature errors.
In-Person Voting
Although a sizable share of voters elected to cast their ballots by mail, state officials made changes to simultaneously ensure safe in-person facilities.
The Healthy Elections Project memo notes successful adjustments, such as:
· Providing socially-distanced voting;
· Adopting new sanitation practices;
· Increasing the availability of poll workers;
· Ensuring the availability of early voting;
· Loosening ID requirements;
· Enacting special measures to protect native communities.
For November, serious obstacles that remain include poll worker shortages, confusion surrounding changes to polling locations, inconsistent implementation of sanitation measures, and technical issues related to registration or ballot printing.
Conclusion
States should be applauded for scaling up positive changes on such short notice and under great pressure. Many state officials demonstrated a real passion and creativity for creating the necessary conditions for Americans to vote. At the same time, the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project has outlined several additional reforms and recommendations to further enhance the ability of all U.S. voters to cast their ballots this fall.
To ensure successful absentee voting, election administrators should:
· Educate voters on eligibility, signature requirements, cure policies, notary/witness requirements, receipt deadlines, and drop-off alternatives,.
· Clarify that fear of contracting COVID-19 qualifies as an excuse for absentee voting.
· Mail applications to all registered voters.
· Extend deadlines for receipt of ballots postmarked by Election Day.
· Install additional drop boxes.
· Hire personnel to assist with ballot processing and tabulating.
· Allow processing and tabulation to begin ahead of the election to minimize delays in announcing results.
To ensure successful in-person voting, election administrators should:
· Disseminate information on in-person locations.
· Invest heavily in poll worker recruitment.
· Secure more polling venues, such as government buildings, shopping malls, and sports arenas.
· Offer innovative models, such as voting centers, drive-thru options, and expanded curbside options.
· Provide adequate sanitation materials.
· Accommodate social distancing.
· Make special arrangements for certain populations — such as Native American communities on reservations — to access voting options.
For a deeper review, we encourage you to read Rehearsal for November: An Analysis of Sixteen August State Elections, state-specific reports, as well as additional research and tools from the Healthy Elections Project. To see research and analysis from the Stanford Cyber Policy Center’s programs and partnerships, visit FSI’s Free, Fair and Healthy Elections in 2020.
This is the second post in Michael McFaul and Bronte Kass’s blog series “Preserving American Democracy.” Read the first post, The Imperative of a Free and Fair Presidential Election in November.
